It is known to form sticks of pasta-filata cheese by a mould having a plurality of vertical moulding channels open at their lower ends, into which hot pasta-filata is fed typically at a temperature of about 62-63° C. The pasta-filata is then unloaded from the open, lower ends of the channels in the shape of sticks, which fall into a consolidation tub filled with cold water, where they are cooled and consolidated.
A drawback of known forming machines is that, especially in the production of sticks which are relatively small in diameter, e.g., less than 25 mm, the sticks are liable to bend and deform as they impact on the surface of the water in the consolidation tub. This is because the sticks discharged from the mould still have a very soft and flexible plastic consistency, due to the high temperature of the pasta-filata of which they are made.
This circumstance not only is undesirable from the aesthetic point of view, because the finished product is desired to have a regular, rectilinear shape, but also generates complications in relation to the packaging of the sticks, which are normally wrapped individually.